Plan to more access to banking data worries ombudsman

The Ombudsman for Data Protection, Reijo Aarnio said that the government´s planning to allow more access of the public agencies to banking data likely to pose a threat to people's security, reported national broadcaster Yle.

The ombudsman expressed concern over the present obsession with creating national registries.

An increasing amount of Finnish residents' medical history information is already being stored in national databases, while the government is looking to create a national income registry to help tax authorities stay up to speed. Work on creating a registry of people's credit history has also reportedly begun, said the Yle report.

"It seems that the political governance [of the database expansion plans] is disjointed and they are having a hard time seeing the big picture," said the Yle report quoting Aarnio as saying.

Earlier, in this month news report said that finance ministry's proposal to expand the rights of several agencies to examine bank details of residents clearly exceeds requirements issued by the European Union to combat crimes like money laundering.

The government proposal said that different authorities such as police, tax authorities and the Social Insurance Institution Kela in future will have the digital access to the individuals bank account.

The proposal said that it aims to expand access to give authorities examine possible money laundering case.

The proposed law will allow the authorities to check the bank detail of a person and see the record of past three years.

The law enforcing agency and tax authorities already have a access to individuals bank account in certain cases.

If the law is passed, Kela will get the expanded abilities to examine the bank accounts of social support recipients.

Currently Kela is able to access such information directly from the banks in cases of suspected welfare fraud, for example.